Si Ouey - ซีอุย: The True Story of Thailand's Infamous Child Killer & Cannibal

Every Thai child knows that if they misbehave, Si Ouey will be around the corner to get them and eat their livers.

Dec 23, 2020

This is just about the most interesting true crime story I’ve looked at in a long time. It was a delight to stitch together the facts in what you’ll read below.

By the way, if you’re reading this right now and haven’t subscribed, Si Ouey will get you and your liver. Keep your vital organs by subscribing here:

Very good. Si Ouey is satisfied. Now to the story…

The smells must have hit Nawa Boonyakan’s nose first.

Burning muscle tissue is said to give off an aroma like beef in a frying pan.

Human body fat, like grilling a side of fatty pork - not dissimilar from Si Ouey’s favorite dish.

Burning skin? It’s like charcoal.

And human hair releases its sulfurous odor in a quick burst of flame.

Beneath the twigs and leaves that smoldered in the forest laid Somboon Boonyakan, the eight year old son of Nawa. It was Si Ouey’s last victim. His small body lifeless and half-charred.

Si Ouey stood beside the burning pile. Nawa went off looking for his son after he’d been missing all afternoon. A friend joined Nawa on the search. They smelled the fire first. The leaves and twigs burning, mixed with the fumes of burning flesh. Nawa spotted Si Ouey and once he saw the little leg of his son sticking out from the leaf pile, his worst fears were confirmed.

The father and his friend tackled the killer to the ground. They waited for police to arrive. Si Ouey didn’t resist when he was arrested.

The boy’s murder was particularly gruesome and visceral.

Somboon had been been disemboweled. Si Ouey pierced the young boy’s throat, right beneath the Adam’s apple, and severed his trachea. He then slit open the boy’s abdomen, from the navel up to the throat again.

Si Ouey was after two things: the heart and the liver.

He took great care in handling the organs. He brought them to his hovel, cleaned them, displayed them in a bowl as if they were a meal of animal meat.

It must have hit Si Ouey then. He had to get rid of the evidence. The prize had already been won - he had the organs. Now it was time to burn the body. He lugged young Somboon’s corpse into the forest, piled leaves and twigs atop, and set it all ablaze. He stood by and watched, stoking the flames to ensure evidence of his hellish deed went up in smoke.

The parents of Somboon insisted that Si Ouey was nothing short of a murderous cannibal for decades after their son’s murder. Si Ouey himself admitted as much to a reporter from Pim Thai newspaper, “I ate them because they revitalized my body” (February 12th, 1958). The killer added matter-of-factly that “human intestines taste really good.”

It was also reported that Si Ouey had met a Chinese hermit years before who opened his eyes to cannibalism, specifically dining on human organs, as a direct method awaken supernatural powers. In the only interview Si Ouey ever gave to media, he said he believed that consuming hearts and livers would strengthen his health.

Presumption of innocence and skepticism

There are skeptics despite all of this: getting caught red-handed burning young Somboon in the Rayong forest; confessing to 5 other murders; gushing about the taste of human flesh.

They say that Si Ouey is not the cannibalistic monster who has haunted Thais and their children for six decades.

Some liken his case to the Koh Tao murders. The analogy being that Si Ouey was an ethnic Chinese, didn’t even speak Thai, at a time when the Red Scare was front and center in Thai politics. These skeptics call Si Ouey a convenient patsy, much like how some call the two Burmese in the Koh Tao case. But these are two different cases. Two different sets of evidence. I say we should look at them separately and not mix them up, despite some greater cultural critique that could be constructed.

Others point out that Thai police parade suspects through the media, both then and now. It’s true - the Thai media can make a spectacle of the accused before any proper trial is held. The Thai press in the 1950s most definitely exploited the child murders to haunt the public and sell more papers. But how the media acted does not determine innocence or guilt.

The skeptics inflate the importance of procedural errors and dubious confessions. They monkey branch up to demands that Si Ouey’s name should be cleared of all wrong-doing.

Look, I’ve pored over the evidence that’s available both in Thai and English, and I’ll say this: Si Ouey is guilty. Of what? Murder. How many kids? I don’t know. Cannibalism? Unlikely.

In the end Si Ouey confessed to six murders, including Somboon’s. The child killer was shot down by a firing squad, executed for his crimes, on September 16th, 1959.

Prison officers embalmed his corpse in tar. The bullet holes riddled his chest and the tar seeped into them, firming up his legacy and his demise, which was put on display for 60 years for visitors to the Siriraj Medical Museum in Bangkok.

The skeptics drummed up enough support to finally give Si Ouey a proper Buddhist cremation.

His tar soaked body, twisted and frozen in time, was taken to Wat Bang Praek Tai in Nonthaburi for the last rites. This is where the bodies of prisoners from Bang Kwang prison, the Big Tiger, are cremated.

Nobody came forth to claim Si Ouey as an ancestor, and thus the Bang Kwang prison sponsored the rite.

The skeptics who freed the image of Si Ouey from museum display showed up to the rite. So did villagers from Thap Sakae subdistrict, Prachuap Khiri Khan province. This was where Si Ouey called home six decades ago.

One man remember Si Ouey from when he was a child in the village, just 10 years old. His name, Jerrerote Jerrepornsawat, now 78. He remembered Si Ouey’s smile, the protruding teeth, and the man not being able to speak a lick of Thai. Si Ouey worked on the farm of Mr. Jerrepornsawat’s father, earning 30 baht per day picking chili peppers.

Si Ouey finished the day’s work at 5PM. And he’d order the same supper every night: salted pork belly.

Grilled or fried?

We don’t know.

What follows below is a chronological look at Si Ouey’s life. The murders that fall under his name. A look at other suspects. And the legacy that Si Ouey leaves us today.

They ate grass, he ate human flesh.

Go do the research on Si Ouey’s birth, and you’ll find discrepancies. Let’s clear this up first before we get any further - it might seem boring to you, but the facts matter, so skip this bit if you’d like.

Si Ouey was born with the name Ng Lihui. One source says he was born in Hun Lai subdistrict, Shantou province, China to a farming family. His father is named as Mr. Sung Ho, mother as Bai Tu. In this account he’s said to be of Teochew descent.

A Thai daily newspaper gives another account of his birth. Here it’s written that he was born in Phueng Tai village, Hong Nguan subdistrict, Xiamen, Fujian province. In this account he’s the youngest of four siblings, the family being of Hakka descent.

Alright, let’s take a breather. It took me an hour just to sort out Si Ouey’s birth details bouncing from Thai original sources, to English, to Thai, to Mandarin, to English as I tracked down the facts.

There are also two different years for his birth, both from authoritative sources: it’s either 1921 or 1927. For the ease of discussion, we’ll go with 1927, as it’s most common in the English language press, although we could make an argument for 1921 being Si Ouey’s birth year.

All of this is just to say: there are many discrepancies in the facts of these cases, and I did my best to sort through them. Sometimes the age of the victims is off by a year or two across different sources, for example.

And his name, Si Ouey. It’s how it’s pronounced. But it’s also written as Si Quey by some.

Moving on then.

In 1945 he was drafted to fight under the command of Chairman Mao Tse’tung against the Imperial Japanese forces. At one point the Japanese laid siege to his unit for weeks. Fellow soldiers ate grass, Si Ouey ate the human flesh of dead soldiers on the battlefield.

The Thai papers reported that this is where he developed the forbidden taste.

Si Ouey fled to Thailand on December 28th, 1946 on a cargo ship called the ProQ.

He planted his feet onto Thai soil at Khlong Toei Port, now known simply as Bangkok Port.

Si Ouey was detained for ten days by immigration. A man named Mr. Tin Ki Sae Ng, unknown relation, certified him for entrance into country. Another account says that a man named Mr. Ha Eoeng ponied up the cash and the documents to get him in.

He kicked around Bangkok doing odd jobs, staying at the Tianjin Hotel in Phra Nakhon district in Bangkok. Then he drifted south-southwest 325 kilometers down to Thap Sakae subdistrict in Prachuap Khiri Khan province. He landed there and picked up work as a farm hand.

Si Ouey traveled a lot. He followed the work, stitching together farm gigs across the coast from Prachuap Khiri Khan north to Bangkok and east to Rayong. He’d lay his head down for two months, then move along and find another farm for six month, then head back to the place he called home in Thap Sakae.

Eight years passed in Thailand without Si Ouey committing a serious crime. He had the occasional controversy. He was odd, by appearance and behavior. He unsettled people. But nothing criminal of note.

That is until April 10th, 1954.

What we know of the murders

Thap Sakae, the place Si Ouey called home.

Her name? Bangorn Pamornsut. She was 8 years old.

Si Ouey slashed her neck, bit her throat, and dragged her into the woods to finish the deal. But she managed to escape.

After the attack the young Bangorn said that there was no way it could have been Si Ouey. He was too small of a man, which isn’t what she remembered.

In fact, Si Ouey was small. He stood a meager 150cm tall.

Si Ouey worked a farm in Thap Sakae. He was known by the locals, gave sweets to the local kids. He’d drift off from the village to find other work throughout Thailand, but Si Ouey always came back to Thap Sakae.

Si Ouey confessed, but Bangorn identified a man named Mr. Clean as the attacker. The local sheriff was his brother. Mr. Clean disappeared after the attack and was never seen again.

Nevertheless, Si Ouey confessed. And not to just this attack.

One month later on May 19th, 1954, another bloody attack. Nid Saephu, a 10 year old girl, is murdered. Same village in Thap Sakae district. Her body was dissected, her entrails stolen away.

Bangkok was next

Six months later on November 28th, 1954, another girl is murdered. Muaychu Saehua, 6 years old, daughter of Xiang Kong. This time in Bangkok, right near the Suan Chitralada Royal Railway Station.

Young Muaychu’s genitals were ripped out. Her guts? They stayed this time.

When Si Ouey confessed to this murder years later, he said he skipped making a meal of her heart for it was too small, and dined on her gullet instead. That was a sick lie - and the skeptics use this confessional fib as an out for the killer. Hogwash. Let’s look at the facts.

We can be confident that Si Ouey murdered young Somboon in Rayong. He was caught red-handed burning the body, the boy’s raw heart and liver waiting in his pantry. He dissected the boy from the throat to his navel. And young Muaychu’s body saw about the same: cutting the throat and dissecting her, but this time he cut out the genitals.

Si Ouey denied involvement with the Bangkok murder initially. But he was aware of the case. He said in an interrogation that, “In Bangkok, I have heard people say that somebody killed a child and took the brains out a year ago. At that time, I was in Phra Nakhon staying at Mr. Bak Tiem’s house. I didn’t go to see it.”

It took 96 hours of interrogation after the Rayong murder for Si Ouey to fess up to what he did in Bangkok. “I used to kill people,” he said. “And eat their livers and hearts. Once in Bangkok, and once in Nakhon Pathom.”

We’ll look at Nakhon Pathom a little later. We’re not done in Bangkok just yet.

Young Muaychu’s mother took her to see an opera on the night of November 28th, 1954. After the show, she disappeared. It wasn’t until early the next morning that her body showed up. Found by workers at the Chitralada Railway station. No evidence was left at the scene, except one bloody toe mark on the floor.

The case saw no progress for three whole years until Si Ouey’s confession on January 31st, 1958.

“At night, around 8PM, I left the house alone. I went to look for a temple near Hua Lamphong. I came across a young girl crying near the opera house. I went to comfort her and asked if she’d come home with me. She agreed.

The girl complained she was sleepy, so I carried her away through the Hua Lamphong station to Rong Mueang Road and across the Kasat Suek Bridge. I walked until the Maha Nak intersection, and then along the Bangkok-Ayutthaya railway for about 300 steps. I laid the girl down and tried to wake her.

I drew a 6 inch long folding knife. I held the girl’s body down. I covered her mouth with my left hand, and stabbed her with my right. I stabbed her neck beneath the Adam’s apple. The girl started crying.

She wore a white shirt. I cut open her shirt to see her chest. Then I cut from her navel to the throat, the same way I did to Somboon in Rayong. Then I cut out her genitals, throwing half away, keeping the other half in my pocket. After that, I walked back home.”

Now let me ask you this. After you read that, do you think that’s a confession of an innocent man?

Was this confession the result of prejudice Chinese faced in Thailand because of the Red Scare in Communist China?

Was this the confession of a convenient patsy?

I don’t know the truth - but I want you to consider both sides.

After the gruesome murder, Si Ouey left Muaychu’s body at the scene and walked back home to the house where he stayed with a man named Mr. Iu Chai Saeng near the Phlapphlachai police station.

Si Ouey says that when he got home, he boiled the girl’s liver and heart. That was a lie. An autopsy confirmed that all of young Muaychu’s organs were in tact, except her genitals.

Let me ask you again. Does this confessional fib mean that Si Ouey didn’t kill the girl?

I’ll let you decide.

Discrepancies in the confession

Si Ouey recalled these details during an interrogation after the murder of young Somboon in Rayong. This was over three years after the murder in Bangkok.

The officers who conducted the interrogation did so with a Chinese interpreter, as Si Ouey spoke no Thai.

According to Si Ouey, the interrogators never threatened him or forced a confession. This is on the record.

There’s more still. The interrogators never asked for locations of the murders in Bangkok and others, but Si Ouey gave them freely and was correct in placing them.

There are discrepancies in his confession. They boil down to the following:

The heart and liver of young Muaychu was never cut out, they were found in tact.
Si Ouey never spent much time in Bangkok, but he knew place, road, and bridge names. He came to Bangkok ten days before the murder of Muaychu. In the confession, he said he stayed with Mr. Iwai Sae Ng on the night of the murder. In fact, he was at the house of Mr. Bak Thiam Sae Lai.

But even these claims are not so simple. There’s an interview with one of the officers in charge of the case published on February 4th, 1958, mere days after Si Ouey’s confessions, that “he was surprised after Si Ouey confessed to the murder of Mueychu and said he only dissected her genitals.”

There’s another report from February 12th, 1958 that says, “When Muaychu died, he dragged the corpse, slashed her chest up to her neck. He took out her heart. But saw it was too small and put it back in. Then he cut a lump out of her throat.”

This report doesn’t add up. Why would this cannibalistic monster drag a girl for several kilometers, slice her body open, yank out her heart, only to deem it too small for consumption?

Your guess is as good as mine. I suppose in matters like these, anything is possible.

The killings continue

Si Ouey returned to Prachuap Khiri Khan. This time to a different district: Sam Roi Yot.

He waited another six months to sate his urge. He murdered 7 year old Kimhiang Saelee on June 22nd, 1955. Her body was found raped and brutalized. Si Ouey said of the killing, “It was a folding knife that I bought. I stabbed her neck and I fled, leaving her body there.”

It was the first victim that was raped. The skeptics use this fact to say he couldn’t have done it. No way. A man who eats a kid’s organs in Rayong, slices his throat and guts, kills a girl in cold blood and cuts out her genitals in Bangkok, there’s no chance that this man could have raped the victim in Sam Roi Yot - because it simply doesn’t fit his M.O.

Bullshit, is what I say.

Another four months, another murder. Same district, Sam Roi Yot in Prachuap province. The victim? 10 year old Ngan Saelee. Again, he confessed “I used a folding knife to pierce her neck. I cut a piece of flesh from the neck and left the body at the scene of the murder.”

The newspapers ran regular headlines about the child killings. The pages frothed with full details, both in words and photos.

1955 closed without another kid taken by Si Ouey's evil hand.

The same for 1956, as far as we know.

Parents in Thailand started to breathe a sigh of relief. Things started to cool down in Thailand. Trust inched back, slowly.

Until he struck again.

Nakhon Pathom, February 6th, 1957.

He went young this time.

The mutilated body of Siewchu, just 5 years old, was found mutilated next to the town’s iconic landmark, the ancient pagoda of Phra Pathom Chedi.

When asked about this murder in the early stages of the marathon 96 hour interrogation in Rayong, Si Ouey said “I knew about the news of the child’s murder in Nakhon Pathom. In fact, I was in that province on that night. I heard the villagers talking about it, but I did not go to see. I was waiting for the express train to return to Thap Sakae.”

He denied involvement.

By the end of the interrogation, on January 31st, 1958, Si Ouey admitted to the murder of young Siewchu in Nakhon Pathom.

“That night there was an opera show for the Chinese New Year. I met the girl walking alone. I asked her to eat ginkgo at the side of the temple. I carried her to the temple. Beneath a Chamchuri tree, I pushed her into the ground. Covered her mouth with one hand. Then with my free hand, used the sharp folding knife and slit her throat. Then I dragged her body to the Phra Pathom Chedi cave. There, in secret, I dissected her body and took out her liver and heart. I carried the body back to the temple, but had difficulty. So I dragged the corpse and left it there.”

There was more evidence at the scene of the crime in Nakhon Pathom than any other. This indicates that the killer was trying to get caught. In fact, this was the last murder tha Si Ouey committed before his final one, where he did get caught, in Rayong.

Again, there’s conflicts between Si Ouey’s confession and what was found at the scene. Reading a newspaper from February 6th, 1957, it’s clear that the body had the organs in tact.

Si Ouey further confessed that “I stabbed the nape of her throat. There was a long wound from the nape to the lower abdomen, almost to the genitals. Her heart and intestines piled outside near the corpse.”

However, this conflicts with what happened. The killer did try to dissect the body. But a novice monk walked by at that time, and the killer escaped in a hurry before cutting the body open.

Yet again this case had no leads for an entire year until Si Ouey confessed to the crime.

Yet again there are discrepancies between his confession and what was found at the crime scene.

I leave it up to you to decide whether he murdered young Siewchu or not.

The big picture

An autopsy was performed on young Somboon, the boy killed in Rayong. His heart and liver were missing from his body. They were found in a bowl at Si Ouey’s home. The organs were examined and found to be real human organs. They were officially recorded as evidence.

My question is, did Si Ouey get a taste of Somboon’s heart? A bite of his liver?

If so, he was cannibal.

It’s only a question then of how many times he murdered and cannibalized the remains of his victims.

Let that sink in.

Si Ouey killed Somboon. He was caught burning the corpse in Rayong. He was caught with the boy’s liver and heart in a bowl at his house.

The other cases are difficult to prove. He confessed to them 1 - 3 years after the murders took place.

But again, he testified that the interrogator never put pressure on him to confess, and force was never used.

What about the trial?

I’m glad you asked.

Si Ouey went to trial on March 25th, 1958. He confessed to every murder that hung over his head on the stand. He didn’t hold a detail back when asked about the crimes.

The prosecutors had witnesses, too. A sibling of Muaychu, the girl murdered in Bangkok. They said they saw Si Ouey leading their sister away from the Chinese New Year celebration in Bangkok’s Chinatown.

The trial lasted only nine days.

Si Ouey fainted when he heard the verdict. He came to when a cop gave him a cigarette to puff on.

There are skeptics who claim that Si Ouey confessed only because the cops hung deportation over his head.

That just doesn’t add up for me.

You don’t reel off details of grisly murders and cannibalism because coppers say they’re sending you back to your homeland.

I mean, I love Thailand just as much as the next guy… but come on.

There are some skeptics who project 1950’s Thailand’s fear of Chinese communism onto the case. They say that’s why he was singled out for the crimes.

No, doesn’t hold water in my book.

It’s like blaming systematic racism and slavery for a murder that a black man commits in America. I know it’s a common excuse these days, but I don’t buy it.

At the end of the day, it’s personal responsibility: he either did the crimes by his own two hands, or his hands were clean.

And we know Si Ouey’s hands weren’t clean, at least in one case for sure.

Those faulty confessions?

They bug me, too.

Don’t get me wrong. I waffled on Si Ouey. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I started poring over every minute little detail.

His confessions seem to be a mix of truth and lies. Maybe that was intentional. We have to consider that, at the very least. The fact is that he did disembowel young Somboon in Rayong. He prepared the organs for consumption - or at least it appeared that way after he put them in a bowl in his kitchen.

Did he cannibalize the other kids?

No, the evidence says.

Did he kill the other kids?

It very damn well looks like it from where we stand.
Look, consider the alternative: Si Ouey didn’t kill these kids.

Then who did?

There are a couple other potential suspects, and I’ll go over them in a second.

But it does very well look like a pattern of child killings developed in 1954-1958. It’s a damn fact that Si Ouey’s hands killed one of those children.

Is it so much of a stretch to consider the possibility that he killed the others?

Consider how each child was killed. Eerily similar between each of them. And I bet you didn’t know this: every single one of those kids were ethnic Chinese.

Sadly, we can only ask questions.

We’ll never know the full truth.

Forensic science is just better now. We have better processes, procedures, and technology. DNA. The whole bit.

Back then? Not so much.

So who else could’ve done it?

Another fine question.

There are two names who pop up in the files.

The first is Mr. Clean, a man we brought up earlier.

He’s the one identified by the first girl who survived the attack. She said that it was impossible Si Ouey did it. Instead, it was Mr. Clean.

He was never heard from again.

Could he have killed the other kids?

Perhaps. Let’s leave that possibility open.

Did he kill young Somboon in Rayong?

No, he did not. Si Ouey did.

There was another man. Sawai Pinsilpachai, a Thai butcher. He was identified by police as the serial child killer and was locked up for nearly a year. A court released him on bail in January 1958, a whole month before Si Ouey’s arrest.

The butcher’s family said he was scapegoat. “We’ve lost everything, we’re broke, even though my son’s innocent,” Sawai’s mother, Thongkiew Pinsilpachai, told reporters on February 4th, 1958.

The Thai police even ran this idea for a brief moment: prosecute Mr. Sawai as an accomplice of Si Ouey’s.

They dropped that idea faster than a hot potato. They just didn’t have the evidence to make it stick.

And consider this: Field Marshall Sarit, a hard nosed junta member, signed Si Ouey’s death warrant. He also ordered executions of civil rights activists and suspected criminals under his watch. According to reports, many were Chinese men.

Could he have had it out for Si Ouey?

Maybe.

OK then, Si Ouey did it. Why?

We don’t know what we don’t know.

But we know this: psychologists said that Si Ouey was free from any mental disorder after examining him.

And we know this: Si Ouey met with a Chinese hermit when he was young who said that eating a kid’s intestine would grant supernatural powers. In the only interview Si Ouey gave to media, he did say that he believed “consuming hearts and livers would strengthen his health. I ate them because they revitalized my body.”

This was published in Pim Thai newspaper on February 12th, 1958.

“And human organs taste really good,” he stated matter-of-factly.

What?

Was this Si Ouey just a troll?

The reporter described his time with Si Ouey at a jailhouse interview.

“When he yawned and stretched his mouth, his snarling teeth were visible. His eyes turned to look like those of a beast, ready to strike its prey.”

He asked Si Ouey why he targeted children.

“Because they’re easy to trick. Adults? They might fight back.”

Si Ouey denied ever abusing his victims sexually, despite the evidence in at least two cases.

All those confessions to police, this admission to reporters. A weird mix of truth and fiction.

Was he just taking the piss?

Si Ouey, was he a child killer, cannibal, and a master troll?

Si Ouey’s end is just the beginning

The man saw his final end in 2020.

It’s been a strange year. One for the books.

Add to it the release of Si Ouey’s mortal coil. His body finally given its last rites. Cremated after 60 tar-soaked, embalmed years.

The skeptics rallied behind Si Ouey’s innocence, or at least, the possibility that he didn’t see true justice in his day.

There’s a Facebook thread (link in sources) with a fiery debate in the comments. For many Thais the case of Si Ouey is more than just armchair true crime speculation for those like myself with a penchant for the bizarre and macabre.

“In this day and age, we all know that Si Quey did not kill and eat human’s innards but was framed by someone powerful. Yet Siriraj Museum still displays his corpse along with the label cannibal. Even the dead don’t get justice,” @ChangeSiam wrote on Twitter.

It was retweeted 80,000 times.

A change.org petition generated more than 10,000 signatures. Of course, I couldn’t access it in Thailand. That website’s been taken down for other, unrelated reasons.

Si Ouey’s case became a flashpoint for the two sides of Thai’s modern social conflict.

One side claimed that there is no justice in the system, neither in Si Ouey’s time nor now.

The other side? They want to sue those who seek to scrub Si Ouey’s name of the most heinous deeds.

That’s modern Thailand.

Absolutely jaded with no trust in institutions on one side.

Litigious and dismissive of facts on the other.

I stand in the middle, or perhaps outside of both. I am a foreigner, so it’s easy to do that. I can look at the case of Si Ouey as it is without the need to take a side and make it a political issue.

Si Ouey’s cremated, but he lives on

Look at this - a foreigner writing over 5,000 words about the case.

Si Ouey has a legacy.

The killer was executed at Bang Kwang on September 16th, 1959.

July 23rd, 2020, more than 60 years later, Si Ouey was cremated at Wat Bang Phraek Tai in Nonthaburi, where all of Bang Kwang’s executed finally go.

Police Colonel Naras Savestanan, the Director-General of the Thai Corrections Department, attended Si Ouey’s funeral rites.

His message was thoughtful and clear.

“The funeral will be done in a way that lets the dead man’s spirit rest in peace. Si Quey was an executed convict who had committed many crimes. We will handle it properly, to prevent any issues arising, and will treat Si Quey like other executed convicts who had no relatives.”

Si Ouey’s ashes were delivered to a temple in Thap Sakae, Prachuap Khiri Khan province.

Home. At least for eight years, that’s what Si Ouey called Thap Sakae.

The residents of the village wanted to keep his ashes there. Locals always thought he was innocent - or at least that’s what some want us to think.

I haven’t talked to a local there.

Maybe some day I will.

A plethora of movies and TV series were produced about Si Ouey’s life and crimes in Thailand. I don’t think his story’s been properly told to a western audience.

Perhaps this is a start.

Of course, there’s a lot more research to be done. Especially with primary sources: medical records, court records and transcripts, and the like.

Sadly, I never got to visit his tar-embalmed corpse at the Siriraj Medical Museum in Bangkok.

His exhibit was the most popular historical exhibit there.

Even more popular than the one showcasing the medical tools used in the autopsy of King Rama 8th after his untimely death due to a firearm accident at the Grand Palace in 1946.

The sign on his exhibit?

It simply said: “Si Quey: Cannibal.”

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas

I sincerely hope you enjoyed that story as much as I did. Consider it an early Christmas gift from me to you. Now just don’t say I never got you anything ;)

If you have any thoughts on Si Ouey, feel free to let me know: truecrimethailand@gmail.com

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